Reviews
'An inspiring contribution to the vibrant history of Jewish culture. This book is both vitally important and gut wrenchingly sad.'
Anne Sebba, author of The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz
'We still see the traces of the Holocaust more than we hear it. This crucial collection of Jewish songs offers a rare window into the soundscape of those who lived through it - and, with expert scholarly contextualisation, a revealing source for studying early Holocaust remembrance.'
Professor James Loeffler, author of Exceptional Hatred
'A book to cherish. Not just the songs themselves, but the story of their survival and the research that the authors have done to bring them to our attention, are all remarkable.'
Professor Dan Stone, author of The Holocaust: An Unfinished History
'Out of the depths is a remarkable collection of songs composed in the ghettos and camps. For Jews under Nazi occupation songs were the most accessible form of cultural self-expression and carried all possible feelings, from despair and fear to hope and religious faith. Anyone interested in Jewish culture during the Holocaust should read this.'
Professor Samuel D. Kassow, author of Who Will Write Our History?
'Out of the depths is nothing less than a treasure. In vivid terms, it tells the story of an immensely meaningful text, beginning with its rediscovery in our own times and travelling back to trace the chain of events that led to its production. A gem for those interested in the Holocaust, in music and the rebirth of documents, buried and unknown.'
Hasia Diner, Professor Emerita, New York University
'This is an essential book for anyone who wants to understand East European Jewish life during the Holocaust. This superb collection of contemporary Yiddish songs is lovingly edited and contextualised by the editors. Powerful and deeply moving.'
Professor Tony Kushner, James Parkes Professor of History, University of Southampton
'Cogently argued, academically sound, often compassionately written, Toltz and Boucher's pioneering single source study amounts to a critical edition of an important if little known anthology of Shoah songs. Future scholars will find in it a model by which to examine the social, cultural and historical contexts that shaped the mission to document and publish folk creations that memorialise experiences of trauma and war.'
Dr Bret Werb, Musicologist and Recorded Sound Curator, US Holocaust Memorial Museum
'A fascinating anthology that highlights the human spirit in the face of unimaginable horror. No serious student of the Holocaust will want to be without this book.'
Dr Adam Gorb, composer
'Readers who know little of the Holocaust will be jolted into empathy. Yiddishists will find these songs a valuable addition to the growing body of personal writing in a language newly studied in the 21st century. One contributor to the book thought of the work as a "tombstone" to the dead. Instead, we should consider it a libretto to keep hope alive.'
Kirkus Reviews
'What emerges is a remarkable story of post-war Jewish migration (contributors were found as far away as Johannesburg and Madrid), and a vivid portrait of the grassroots cultural life of the camps themselves.'
Claire Allfree, The Telegraph
Unter dayne vayse shtern (Underneath your starry sky), words by Avram Sutskever.
Avram Sutskever (left, top right and bottom right), joined by Szmerke Kaczerginski (top right and bottom right)